Nobody really knows what drove the young John Walker Lindh to actually fight
for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan but I believe that it was the doings of
McWorld. I believe that McWorld not only drove him to Jihad but actually guided
him there. I also contend that once John was with Jihad he was lead to fight
by McWorld. He went on a journey hoping to find religious freedom and ended
up as the American Taliban, branded a traitor and a killer. I do not think he
is to blame here but was merely misled.

Let's start by finding his roots and where his journey began. When John was
ten years old his family moved from the Washington D.C. area to Marin County
just north of San Francisco in California. There he attended a school that was
for students who are independently directed. His father described his studies
there as "very musical, very adept at languages and very studious."
When he was sixteen years old he started to become very interested in spiritual
issues and converted to Islam. He joined the local mosque and started to use
Islamic names. He moved his interest for Islam to the Internet when he started
to join chat rooms praising his Muslim behavior. He was young, independent,
and enthusiastic about learning the Koran and all of the teachings of Islam.

Walker decided to continue his quest for knowledge in 1998 when he traveled
to Yemen and later Pakistan where he enlisted in an Islamic fundamentalist school,
which is known as a madrasah. He was devoting himself to Islam and it was good
for his life, all he was doing was being a good Muslim. He was a student, studying
Islam, until he came into contact with people connected to the Taliban in the
Northwest Frontier Province. There he became very fond of the Taliban's way
life and wanted to help them in any way he could. He was sent to fight with
the Pakistani Military against the Indians. Walker then went to Afghanistan
and made his way to the Taliban recruiting center, but because he only spoke
Arabic and not the local dialects he was assigned to fight with Osama bin Laden
and the al Qaeda group. He was offered many options but decided to stay and
fight on the front lines against the Northern Alliance. It was here where he
was captured by the United States military and his journey ended. I want to
explore why and what lead him to a life of this kind.

Having these facts at hand I can now understand the road that John took on his
way to becoming the American Taliban. He grew up in an upper middle class society
where McWorld flourishes. Being the independent free thinker that he was he
was able to decide for himself what was right and wrong in his own mind. McWorld's
values of money worship and greed made him repulsed by American society and
forced him to find other options that would further his mind and spirit. There
is nothing that stimulates your mind that comes from McWorld. I do not think
that he was pleased with what was going on around him and was ready for a major
change in his life. John began to look around for an alternative life that could
be more rewarding for him and one which would rid his life of the corruption
and overall misery that McWorld gave him. That major change came in the form
of Islam and for John it was a great distraction from the blur that is McWorld.
He was able to distance himself from the uniform of McWorld and be the intellectually
minded person that his new life called for. He eventually abandoned the United
States and left McWorld behind, or so he thought. You cannot leave out Jihad
when speaking of McWorld and vice versa, his journey towards Jihad was all part
of McWorld.

How in fact did he find Jihad? One of McWorld's greatest tools, the Internet,
helped him find his way. McWorld's concepts of globalization brought these two
worlds so tightly together that the overlapped. Through the Internet John was
able to find this alternative life that he so greatly needed. Without the use
of computers and the Internet how would he have accessed the chat rooms where
he later found the schools that could help him better understand Islam. McWorld
is like the needle to the world, stitching and weaving every corner of the globe
to an overwhelming closely nit society where there are no loopholes that you
can get lost in. What I am trying to say is that Maybe John did not know exactly
where he needed to go to achieve spiritual purity but McWorld knew exactly where
to send him on his quest.

The reason that John had so easily found his home with Jihad was because of
the "narrow casting" of products that McWorld distributes. The sites
that John visited to find his way were aimed directly at him. One of McWorld's
goals is to find a profitable market for every possible audience and to make
it readily available. You can see that this was not at all difficult to be lead
down the wrong path because you might not know where that particular path will
take you. Maybe you cannot really fault McWorld, all that they were doing is
offering shopping alternatives for their globalized markets. John was just simply
a part of that market and did not know that he was contributing to the very
thing that he was looking to escape. John was trying to find his sense of nationalism
that McWorld could not provide him with. How would John ever have found his
Jihad if McWorld would did not stretch the international borders so that the
United States and Afghanistan were practically touching? The systems of communication
that he used are the perfect ingredients for profit in the world that he left
behind. Taking an even closer look into his way to Jihad, how did he literally
get there? He got a flight and took it to his destination. The travel agency
that he took was also part of McWorld. It seems to me that the whole time he
was trying to get out of McWorld he kept dragging it along with him wherever
he went. He was writing to his parent's asking them for money that was sent
directly to him via McWorld. These co-existing forces were aiding each other
and fighting each other at the same time, becoming closer and closer every minute.
This makes no sense to me what are the reasons for this battle because it never
gets anywhere except where it started. It is like Jihad and McWorld are patting
each other on the back and at the same time punching each other in the face.
I guess you could say that McWorld was aiding and abiding the very dangerous
jihadi fighter John Walker Lindh.

Once John arrived in Jihad he had started his quest for knowledge and looked
to others for advice. Muslims are influenced by the people around them and whoever
they lean on to answer their Islamic questions. I do not know who led him to
Afghanistan but it does not matter because I don't buy the fact that he got
around the conventional way or that he was in contact with these people by walking
around the Middle East. Just the plain fact that he traveled thousands of miles
to arrive at Jihad give me indication that Jihad is also very closely tied together
for the purpose of Holy Jihad. All of these actions taken by John and company
are very connected with McWorld.

So I find myself asking the question who is to blame for putting this misguided
young man in the position he is now? Is it McWorld for instigating this war
by inflicting misery and suffering on Afghanistan seeking political interests?
Or is it Jihad for continuing to fight this pointless war that they cannot even
justify as a holy war? All I can come up with here is that they both are to
blame because they are practically the same exact entity. Always seeking each
other out only to help each other in their pursuits. They become eternal enemies
and feed each other's growth every day.